


The gentle violence of loving you

by sweetlikesugar



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Character Study, Clubbing, Developing Relationship, Falling In Love, Getting Together, Injury Recovery, Kissing, M/M, Panic Attacks, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Smoking, Swearing, very mild suicidal tendencies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-21
Updated: 2020-04-21
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:54:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23768830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweetlikesugar/pseuds/sweetlikesugar
Summary: They come together like this: quiet nights, cracking masks, and the disturbing brutality of life.
Relationships: Kevin Day/Andrew Minyard
Comments: 11
Kudos: 83





	The gentle violence of loving you

**Author's Note:**

> the working doc title of this was "midget rage". i am the midget

When Andrew first comes to Palmetto he doesn’t expect much. He never does, to be honest. The coach looks like a big angry man, the type that Andrew has seen countless times. They are quickly whisked away for medical examinations and whatnot, and Andrew goes along with it with a bland smile firmly in place.

Meeting Kevin Day again is underwhelming and vaguely uncomfortable.

Maybe because Andrew expected something more from The Son of Exy than a PR smile that doesn’t reach his hollow eyes, a mangled left hand in a cast, and a silhouette held together only by fear and expectations of others. 

He knows about the whole Moriyama mess, knows that Day is a runaway Raven, and when Day’s left hand twitches, fingers black-blue and crooked, Andrew thinks he can figure out the reason why.

The primal fear and the badly concealed anger in Day’s eyes have Andrew intrigued, just slightly.

He watches Day’s eyes twitch between him and Aaron, looking them up and down, gears in his head turning. He sees the palatable unease in Day’s posture and the defensive slant of his wide shoulders like a cornered animal, like a fox in a fox trap. 

Andrew grins, teeth bared, corners of his lips taut and tight, eyes cold.

Day squints his empty eyes slightly, nose wrinkling just a bit.

Andrew, much to his displeasure, feels seen.

* * *

  
  


They don’t speak.

It’s clear Day isn’t a talker on a good day, and since there has not been a single day so far that on a scale from 1 to 10 ranks higher than 3, the silence is understandable.

Andrew watches Day kill himself in the plexiglass dome for hours on end, practicing with his right hand, clumsy and desperate, stumbling through drills he could’ve done with his eyes closed. He knows Day doesn’t sleep. Andrew doesn’t sleep either, instead he spends his nights on the roof of the tower, trying to feel alive when he sits too close to the edge.

SWISH.

THWACK.

Andrew watches Day miss the goal by inches again and grinds his cigarette into the pavement.

* * *

  
  


It’s unusual to see someone that isn’t Andrew on the roof of the tower in the middle of the night. 

There’s a hunched figure sitting close to the edge. Closer than Andrew dares to go.

He only realizes it’s Day after the man turns halfway, face illuminated by the yellow glow of the streetlamp nearby. They stare at each other for a while and then Day turns back, swallowed by shadows again, not acknowledging Andrew any further.

Andrew, in turn, makes no effort to pretend he’s not staring at Day’s mangled left hand. The cast is off, but the limb is an amalgamation of bruises, purple-yellow-green, stiff and aching. The fingers healed all weird, some straight and some crooked. It’s gonna feel like hell when it gets cold, that’s for sure.

Day sees Andrew watching him and says nothing. Instead, he flexes his left hand and Andrew grins at the cacophony of joints cracking, the green-yellow flesh bulging and shifting grotesquely, fingers stiff and rigid in a weird half-claw.

“Pretty useless” he comments idly, flicking crumbling ash off the end of his smoke. “Wouldn’t it be easier to chop it off at the wrist? You’d have the same range of motion, I reckon”.

Day says nothing.

“Honestly, I thought meeting Kevin Day would be more exciting. How disappointing” he bemoans “if I wanted to look at something pathetic I’d go look at Nicky”.

“You start drills tomorrow,” Day says instead.

“It’s all work no play with you” Andrew sighs dramatically. “You got anything else to live for other than stickball? Anything else that gets you going?”.

Day turns to him with creepy hollow eyes. “Do you?”.

Andrew inhales smoke. “Not stickball, that’s for sure”.

Day tilts his head, curious. “For sure”.

Andrew preferred it when he was quiet.

* * *

  
  


Andrew enters the plexiglass dome unwillingly. His interest peaks slightly when he sees Day grip his racket in his battered left hand. 

“Gonna re-break it?” he grins nastily.

Day smirks. “If you’re good enough”.

And _oh._ Isn’t that new.

Andrew catches the first few shots effortlessly. Just because he doesn’t give a shit doesn’t mean he’s bad at his job. 

Day shakes off his hand, flexes it once or twice, and lets some fire seep into the vast blankness of his eyes. He starts to get angrier and tries harder, and Andrew is forced to try just a bit in return. 

They got at it for three hours, which is two hours forty-five minutes more than Andrew has patience for, and by the end of it they’re both panting.

Day’s left hand is shaking, spasming painfully and Andrew stares right at it when he asks “so, rebroken?”.

The fire in Day’s eyes is dying out but there’s enough of it for his lips to quirk up a fraction when he says “you’re not that good”.

* * *

  
  


When he comes back from the door at the crack of dawn he finds Day curled up on the couch of the common room, illuminated by the pale white glow of his laptop screen. 

Their eyes meet, air pulled taut between them until Andrew closes the door quietly and wordlessly goes to the kitchen.

Day keeps his eyes on him the entire time, apprehensive, attention jumping between his face, his hands and the line of his shoulders. 

They’re two spooked animals backed into a corner and Andrew needs to get out of this situation as quickly as possible.

They both breathe only after Andrew closes his bedroom door.

* * *

Andrew sits in the bleachers and watches Day try to wrangle his right hand into obedience. He watches the frustration pulling at his shoulders and the smoldering determination in his eyes.

Day is always most expressive on the court. The moment he leaves, it’s like he abandons all his emotions as well, eyes empty again like a puppet with its strings cut.

They sometimes bump into each other on the roof of the tower where there’s a gap in the railing that never fails to get Andrew’s pulse to speed up when he sees Day so close to it. He’s always empty then as well, empty and tired. Tired of being afraid, tired of being angry. Tired of being tired. It doesn’t take much to see it and sometimes Andrew wonders if he’s the only one looking.

Day is a good actor but Andrew sees right through him like he’s made of glass. One animal to another, Andrew can see exactly where Day is cracking, a spider web of hairline fractures running up and down his entire self, held together by spite and desperation.

Andrew wonders if Day will die on the court or if he’s already dead off of it.

* * *

  
  


Kevin sits on the roof of the tower, one knee tucked to his chest, chin digging into it, one leg hanging off of it through the gap in the railing.

Andrew will appear sooner or later. Always does.

It seems like Andrew is always in his peripheral, watching him with some clinical fascination like a bug under the microscope. It doesn’t take much to realize Andrew is bored. So bored. Looking for something to spark his interest, anything at all. 

Kevin must make an interesting sight. A disgraced royalty, someone called him once. Funny. He may be disgraced but he was never royalty. Not really. Riko made sure he remembered that every time he looked in the mirror. 

He scoots closer to the gap in the railing, one leg in the sensation of a free fall, and closes his eyes. He tilts forward the slightest bit. 

The door to the roof rattles and swings open with a screech.

Not today then.

* * *

  
  


Kevin’s first mistake is dissociating outside his bedroom. His second mistake is leaving the tv on.

He’s yanked back to reality by a familiar voice. He doesn’t think much of it until he realizes it’s Riko laughing, his polished tv chuckle and then he’s speaking, looking straight at the camera, straight at _Kevin._

It punches his breath out of his lungs and he curses, feeling seen and threatened, and he stumbles off the couch on weak knees, at least hoping to make it to his bedroom before panic hits him head-on.

He doesn’t make it and instead slumps against the back of the couch, gasping for breath, throat clogged. His heart races, nausea swelling in his stomach and Riko keeps laughing, keeps talking, _he’s right here, right here, Kevin can hear him and his hand, oh god his hand--_

“--in? Kevin, hey, look at me”.

Kevin shakes his head, cradling his left hand to his chest and fuck, it’s all numb now. All numb--

“--e hell?”.

“--s a panic attack”.

Yeah, yeah he knows that, but it won’t stop, as long as Riko is still here--

“Hey, hey look at me” Andrew crouches to his eye level, a safe distance away. “What is it?”.

Kevin shakes his head. “-e’s here”.

“Who’s here?”.

Kevin gasps, trying to get enough air. _“He’s here”._

Andrew blinks and turns to whoever is in the common room with them. “Turn the tv off”.

“Why?”.

“Just fucking turn it off. And get lost”.

Riko’s voice cuts off and the vice around Kevin’s lungs releases a fraction. He sniffs, mortified at tears running down his face.

“Breathe with me”.

Andrew is the last person Kevin expected to guide him through a panic attack, but he doesn’t question it. He avoids eye contact, instead trying to move his left hand to no avail.

“That happens often?”.

Kevin doesn’t look up, so he doesn’t know if Andrew is referring to the panic attack or the pathetic twitch of his left thumb when he tries to curl his hand into a fist.

He hears Andrew get up and walk away.

“Coach said he has some players for you to look over. Said to get your ass to his office asap”.

Kevin hums an acknowledgment and doesn’t look up until the door to the common room slams shut behind Andrew.

He cracks his neck and sighs. 

* * *

  
  


Andrew watches Kevin closely on the roof that night. Watches him pretend he didn’t gather all his pieces and put them together with duct tape, haphazardly, just well enough that it doesn’t show at first glance. 

It doesn’t. Andrew sees it anyway.

He sees Kevin fidget with his left hand, flexing it, rolling his wrist, clenching his fist. He remembers how it twisted grotesquely in a motionless claw, numb and disobedient. Now the rhythmic albeit stilted clench-release of it makes sense.

He wonders if anyone is aware of the extent to which Kevin Day is falling apart. He supposes Bee would if Kevin bothered to speak to her at all. He doesn’t seem the type. He wonders what will happen if Kevin never regains control of his left hand. Wonders if he will train with his right instead.

It’s obvious that Kevin Day doesn’t know how to function without exy. He never had to learn. But now he may have to, and Andrew isn’t so sure Kevin can handle that.

When he thinks of the fire in Kevin’s eyes every time he gets on the court he hopes it won’t burn him alive.

“That happens often?” he asks around a cigarette. “Your hand” he clarifies when Kevin shoots him a confused frown.

“Will it be a problem?”.

“Why do you care?”.

Andrew exhales smoke. “I don’t”.

Kevin glances at him from the corner of his eye. “Then why ask? You either care or you don’t. Pick one”.

“Touchy”.

Kevin looks at Andrew flatly. “Don’t need you to pretend you care”.

Andrew scoffs. “Kevin Day hating being doted on?”.

Kevin looks him right in the eyes, green to hazel. 

“Just hate being lied to”.

* * *

“That’s it. I’m done”.

Andrew throws his racket down, stretching with his arms reaching up and above. His spine cracks.

Kevin has been near suicidal today, driven by some murderous force Andrew has never seen before. But it wasn’t just in his eyes this time, it’s been in the set of his jaw and the slant of his shoulders.

Kevin stares, displeased. “Not yet”.

“If you want to train more, be my guest, but you’re going to shoot to an empty goal”.

Kevin stares, the fire in his eyes cooling. Andrew knows it will diminish in a few minutes, and Kevin will succumb to the vast nothingness again.

“Do you ever get bored of doing shit halfway?”. 

Andrew blinks. “What?”.

“You’re a good player”.

Andrew grins. “How flattering--”.

“But you don’t care, do you? About anything. You’re so bored”.

“Well, you’ve been pretty entertaining lately”.

“But not enough to get you to care” Kevin tilts his head.

“Don’t take it personally” Andrew keeps grinning hollowly. 

“So you don’t have it, do you? A thing that _gets you going?_ ”.

Andrew blinks at the bizarre throwback, smile slipping off his face. 

“What gets you out of bed every morning?” Kevin wonders out loud. “Why are you here, still, why are you entertaining me?”.

Andrew shrugs. “Not every day you can see a raven going solo” he hopes to make it hurt. “With one wing broken like a fucked up Icarus”.

Kevin clenches his jaw. 

“That’s not all of it” he murmurs, looking down and away from Andrew.

“You have a pretty high opinion on yourself for a one-handed cripple” Andrew raises his eyebrows.

“It gets you off”.

Andrew barks a startled laugh.

Kevin looks him right in the eye, now grave. “How about a deal then? You start trying. I won’t go so far to ask you to _care,_ ” he smiles wryly “but I think trying is fair game. And in return, I’ll help you find it. The thing that gets you going. The thing that gets you out of bed every morning”.

“Why would I take that deal?” Andrew raises his eyebrow.

“Because you’re bored” Kevin shrugs “and it will be entertaining to see me try to make you try”.

Andrew’s lip twitches in a smile a little less manic.

“I see you” Kevin murmurs, the fire in his eyes dying down, but it doesn’t give way to emptiness this time. “I see you”.

Andrew _feels_ seen. Like the whole time he’s been watching Kevin, Kevin was watching him right back.

“Fine” he smirks. “Effort for effort. That should entertain me plenty”.

Kevin stares at him a bit longer and nods. “Done deal. In that case” he smirks “get back to the goal”.

* * *

They start talking after that. Outside the court and the roof, that is. Casual interactions, more barbed banter than anything else, but it seems to smooth over some of the tension in the dorms.

Andrew can’t stop thinking about the encounter on the court. How Kevin made him feel exposed. 

Andrew doesn’t ever feel exposed.

It grates on him, but much less than he’d expect. _I show you mine, you show me yours,_ he thinks, because he’s pretty sure Kevin knows Andrew sees him too.

Andrew sees a caged animal of a man, an exposed nerve, a sculpture made of broken pieces precariously balancing on top of each other, one gust of wind enough to knock it all over. He sees the fear, the anger, the exhaustion. 

It’s curious to watch Kevin kill himself on the court day in and day out, wrangling both of his hands into obedience. That’s the only time there’s any life in his eyes, any fire. Off the court Kevin Day is a dead man walking.

Andrew doesn’t want to think about why it bothers him even in the slightest.

He spends another sleepless night blowing smoke rings into the night air and wonders what does Kevin see when he looks at Andrew.

* * *

  
  


Kevin can’t make sense of Andrew. He knows things. He knows Andrew is bored, so bored, not interested in exy at all. He knows the doped up grin, pulled tight at the corners by invisible hooks, knows the cold eyes that come with it. 

He knows Andrew is looking for entertainment. Something to occupy himself with, anything at all. He knows he is serving as entertainment right now, crippled and broken and refusing to fold.

He knows Andrew is watching him. Seeing him. Seeing things Kevin doesn’t like to think about. Things he pushed away and deep inside to never look at them again. 

But behind all of that, behind that obnoxious medicated mania, he knows Andrew is empty. Nothing to fill him, nothing to satisfy him. It must be frustrating, he thinks, to drift from one shiny thing to another, never getting his fill. 

Kevin frowns, puzzled as to why the thought of Andrew never finding something worth living for grates on him so badly.

He sighs and hits play on another match, shuffling his notes around.

He wonders what Andrew sees when he looks at Kevin.

* * *

Kevin exudes frantic energy. He looks sick, with eyes black-rimmed with exhaustion, lips dry and cracked.

Andrew walks into the plexiglass cage wary, uncertain as of how Kevin will act on the court. He knows better than to try to put an end to whatever masochistic performance of commitment to the game Kevin decides upon. 

Andrew promised him effort, so that’s what he gives, but he’s unprepared for the feral viciousness Kevin answers him with. It’s like he aims each shot to kill, the force and speed of it unreal and not what Andrew has seen from him so far at all.

He’s caught in a crossfire, Kevin attempting to battle an invisible enemy and Andrew can do nothing else but to give him a fair fight. 

There’s not a trace of fire in these green eyes this time, just fear and void and it feels wrong, it feels backward, because Kevin is supposed to come alive at the court, but if that’s what it takes to get him to purge that violent fear then so be it.

Andrew rolls his shoulders and grins. “What’s your fucking trauma?” he yells across the field. “What the fuck are you so scared of?”.

He’s pretty sure he knows the answer for it.

He watches Kevin square his shoulders.

“You gonna kill it?” Andrew laughs, giddy with anticipation. “You’re trying to, aren’t you? You gonna kill him or yourself first?”.

Kevin snarls and launches an offensive again. 

Andrew doesn’t give a shit about exy but he can appreciate how Kevin moves his body, no action wasted. Each move has a function and it has a purpose, it is to be executed with lethal precision and deadly force. 

But no matter how well the machine is working, if one part is broken, the rest follows. 

Andrew sees the stiff bend of Kevin’s left hand, the painful cramp of it. It changes the shot’s trajectory last second, making it sail smoothly right into the net of Andrew’s racket.

It drives Kevin ballistic, this one slight mistake, and he goes faster, harder, even when the pain and exhaustion wage war on his face, even when he’s dripping with sweat and barely moving.

It quickly stops being entertaining.

“You’ll break it again” Andrew watches Kevin try to flex his hand, unsuccessfully.

“You’re not that good” Kevin snarls.

“Well neither are you” Andrew looks at Kevin blandly. “You’re supposed to be smart. Your right hand is useless. Your left nearly too. You’re gonna end up twice as crippled”.

Kevin stares at him, furious.

“Killing yourself won’t kill him” Andrew keeps the burning eye contact. “You’ll be doing him a favor”.

He leaves Kevin on the court.

The sound of the ball hitting plexiglass accompanies him on his way out.

* * *

  
  


He doesn’t expect to see Kevin on the roof that night but maybe he should’ve.

Andrew sits with his back to the wall, keeping an eye on the distance between Kevin and the ledge.

“Are you calm now?”.

Andrew hears a snort.

“Am I ever?”.

Andrew lights up a cigarette. “No” he admits. “You’re just empty”.

Kevin turns to him halfway. He opens his mouth to say something and thinks better of it.

“Whenever you’re off the court,” Andrew exhales smoke, “you get this look. Empty. Tired. Scared”. 

Kevin flinches. 

“A dead man walking” Andrew murmurs “but rolling over and playing dead won’t save you. Not from him”.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about”.

“I’m talking about your skiing accident” Andrew draws the words _skiing accident_ with a smirk. 

Kevin laughs a hollow, bitter sound. “It doesn’t matter. No matter what I do, he’s always here. He knows where I am, he knows what I’m doing. He’ll always find me and he’ll take me back, right back home, there’s nothing I can fucking do about it, no one can--”.

Andrew doesn’t like how close Kevin is to the ledge.

“You don’t know that”.

“It’s the only thing I know” Kevin spits out. “It’s the only constant I have”.

“He won’t take you. I won’t let him”.

Kevin looks at him, incredulous. “You think you can stop him?”.

Andrew grins crookedly. “I sure can try. Effort for effort, right?”.

Kevin still stares at him, uncomprehending.

Andrew drags him closer by the front of his hoodie. Makes sure Kevin looks him right in the eyes.

“He won’t touch you” Kevin’s eyes widen. “As long as I’m here he won’t touch you”.

Kevin makes an aborted move as if to touch Andrew but drops his hand last second.

“You can’t promise me that” he whispers, “no one can”.

“No one tried before” Andrew stares back, unwavering, unflinchingly confident. “I don’t go back on my promises. As long as I’m here he won’t get you”.

Kevin sucks in a shaky breath and averts his eyes. Andrew lets him go and slumps back against the wall.

“Your end of the deal is still up,” he tells Kevin matter-of-factly. “Find whatever it is that makes my life worth living”.

Kevin snorts and lets his lips stay folded in a weak smile. “Spite”.

Andrew looks at him, half illuminated by the warm glow of the streetlamp, more approachable than anyone has ever been with Andrew.

“Yeah. That sounds about right”.

* * *

  
  


Andrew decides it’s high time to go to Eden’s Twilight. 

He banishes Nicky to the backseat with Aaron and ignores their complaints.

Kevin comes alive to the beat-heavy saturated air of the club. 

Andrew watched him play, he knows how his body moves when it’s all angles and lethal precision, but he’s never seen this languid surrender, the easy ebb-and-flow along with the shuddering bass, his movement devoid of any tension and stiffness.

He’s content to sit tucked out of sight, eyes never leaving Kevin. He watches the taller man deftly evade grabby hands of potential dance partners, leaving behind nothing but a teasing smile and empty air.

He allows himself a brief detour to the stretch of Kevin’s throat, glistening with perspiration, to the loose line of his shoulders and down his back, paying attention to how the soaked fabric of his shirt sticks to his skin, down to the sway of his hips. 

This can doom him, he thinks, dragging his eyes back up. Whatever pieces of himself Kevin showed him, willingly or not, Andrew collected diligently. 

This shit always comes back to bite him, Andrew ponders, eyeing Kevin over the rim of his glass. He’s quite unprepared for Kevin to look up and lock eyes with him, his body still rocking to the music.

Andrew sets down his glass and sinks back into the sofa, arms folded on his chest. He raises his eyebrows.

Kevin shakes his head, lips quirked up in a smile, but Andrew knows an understanding has passed when the bass changes to something heavy and fluid and Kevin’s body moves with it, even when his eyes stay firmly on Andrew.

Yeah, this will ruin him, Andrew realizes, watching Kevin get lost in the liquid rhythm of the bass.

But maybe, for once, it won’t kill him.

* * *

  
  


They crash in their house in Columbia. Kevin stumbles over a couch and falls into it, with all the grace of a cut-down tree and Nicky tries to move him to an upstairs bedroom, but Kevin bats his hands away, curls in on himself and falls asleep.

Andrew dumps Kevin’s bag next to the couch and pointedly doesn’t linger to watch Kevin be peaceful for the first time since Andrew met him, and goes to his room.

Andrew isn’t so much an early riser as he’s not much of a sleeper, and neither is Kevin, so when Andrew stumbles into the kitchen just around dawn, he isn’t surprised to see Kevin already there, changed and showered, with a mug of coffee in front of him.

They know their way around each other by now, learned how to navigate the treacherous waters of the other’s mood, so Andrew doesn’t say anything, just nods his greeting when Kevin looks at him, and shuffles around the kitchen to make coffee for himself. He watches Kevin grimace at the sugar he dumps inside and grins.

“Hungover?”.

“Didn’t even drink much”. 

It’s a new side of Kevin that Andrew wasn’t privy to so far, this sleep softened exterior, dream-flushed and rosy, a little bit hazy, a little bit slow. He walks by Kevin and catalogs the heat of his sleep warmed body, and sits at the table with him a safe distance away.

Andrew treasures his space, guards it viciously, but right now an isolated corner of his brain can’t help but want to sit just a bit closer, feel the warmth of Kevin’s body a little bit more. 

Kevin looks at him, only half of his walls in place yet, and sends him a smile that’s barely even one, just a sideways quirk of his lip. His eyes are still tired, his shoulders still tense, but there’s give in the line of his spine, slight ease to the severe line of his jaw.

Trust, apparently, looks like a sleepy morning after a night out, silence, and half-smiles hidden in mugs of coffee.

* * *

  
  


They continue this trend of silent companionship in Palmetto, each of them buried in their own assignments.

Kevin zones out in the middle of an essay on Gulf of Tonkin, mind momentarily shutting down. He’s stuck watching Andrew, on one of the beanbags with unseeing eyes, letting himself drift in a way he rarely does.

He lets himself glance over the line of Andrew’s jaw, down his neck, to the strong set of his shoulders. He spends a bit too much time looking at his arms in his form-fitting shirt, trailing back up to his face, until he realizes Andrew is staring back at him.

Kevin doesn’t look away, stuck with his mind in the ether. Andrew moves, still staring back and Kevin flinches, his absent mind suddenly going haywire.

Andrew sinks back into the beanbag and lets Kevin gather his bearings.

“Back to the land of the living?” Andrew asks when Kevin’s eyes lose the hazy sheen.

Kevin hums. “More or less”.

“Where’d you go?”.

“Why?” Kevin hunches his shoulders. “Wanted a souvenir?”.

Andrew doesn’t crack a smile. “So I know where to find you”.

Kevin stares at him, puzzled, even after Andrew crawls out of the beanbag and disappears in the kitchen. He looks back at his essay, where a staggering word count of 307 blinks back at him. 

“Do you ever fucking say what you mean?” he murmurs, tossing one last look at the kitchen, before opening another tag for research purposes.

* * *

  
  


Kevin watches the moonlight reflected in the tiles of the kitchen floor. His head is empty and crowded at the same time and he doesn’t like it. There’s no pleasant thoughtless void, just a muddled, tangled mess of thoughts that has him glued to the floor, back against the cupboards.

Nowadays Kevin seems to be preoccupied with Andrew more often than not, ever since the ridiculous promise on the roof, the confusion only amplified by whatever happened in Columbia. It’s not that Kevin doesn’t know Andrew is attractive. He is. Very much so. But Kevin can’t figure him out at all.

It feels like Andrew made more sense when he didn’t care about Kevin in the slightest, when all there was to him was boredom and cynicism. Now Kevin is all out of sorts with Andrew hovering over him constantly, a steady presence at his side.

_As long as I’m here, he won’t touch you._

How peculiar, Kevin thinks, for Andrew to make a promise like this. Andrew didn’t want to be here in the first place, he doesn’t care for exy or for Kevin any more than he cares for Seaworld’s stock value, and yet he promised it so easy. As if he didn’t just vow to protect Kevin’s life from the mob. 

It’s nice to have someone pretend to care, is what Kevin decides on finally when his hands grow cold from where he presses it into the tiled floor. The corners of his lips quirk up.

Yeah. He’d like this make-believe concern over his safety last forever. But even if it only lasts another month or just a week, he’d take it all and keep it close.

It’s more than anyone ever did for him anyway.

* * *

  
  


Andrew is not the first person on the roof. He rarely is anymore. 

Kevin sits away from the ledge tonight, back to the wall, one knee close to his chest. He holds out his hand when Andrew sits down and for a bizarre second, Andrew’s first impulse is to hold it.

“Care to share?” Kevin wiggles his fingers and Andrew tosses him the pack, not disappointed in the slightest.

Instead, he watches shadows creasing on Kevin’s face in the flickering yellow light of the flame, and how smoke drips out of his mouth like dragon’s breath.

It’s new in a way that doesn’t feel new at all, and Andrew holds the smoke in his throat a little bit longer, dragging his exhale out, not at all savoring the taste on his tongue knowing Kevin’s mouth tastes the same.

“Do I still seem dead off the court?” Kevin breaks the silence.

Andrew blinks. “Why?”.

Kevin shrugs. “Been thinking of my skiing accident”.

“Oh?” Andrew leans forward slightly “what’s been going through that pretty head of yours?”.

It gets Kevin to crack a lopsided smile before he shakes his head. 

“Don’t hold out on me now” Andrew flicks off excess ash “we made a deal, yeah?”.

“Effort for effort” Kevin agrees. “But that doesn’t mean you have to pretend you care”.

“Good thing I’m not pretending then, no?” Andrew sees the exact moment Kevin’s shoulders go tight and his walls go up again.

“Don’t--”.

“Don’t what?” Andrew grins, all teeth. He hasn’t done that in a while. 

“Don’t tell me what I want to hear”.

“Do I ever?” Andrew puts out his cigarette and throws it away. “I’m only telling you what I want to say”.

“What does that even mean?” Kevin grumbles. “You’re not making any sense”.

“I’m not?”.

“No, the fuck, you aren’t” Kevin turns to look at him, angry and confused. “Why would you promise anything like that? You don’t even care”.

“Did I say that?”.

Kevin looks at him. 

“Did I say I don’t care?” Andrew lights up another cigarette.

“That was a given. That’s what the deal’s all about”.

“You said you’re going to make me try, not care” Andrew smiles smugly “did all of that myself”.

“This conversation doesn’t make any sense anymore” Kevin sighs “forget I said anything”.

He moves to get up but Andrew catches him by the sleeve.

“I care” he looks Kevin right in the eyes, no trace of humor on his face. “No pretending. No being nice. I care”.

“Why?” Kevin whispers. 

Andrew moves closer, faces inches away. Kevin can count his eyelashes from this close, taste the bitterness of his breath.

Andrew flicks him on the forehead.

“That’s for you to figure out” he sticks a half gone cigarette between Kevin’s lips. “You’re smart. Don’t take too long”.

He leaves Kevin with his cigarettes and even more questions.

* * *

  
  


It’s not like Andrew gives him a wide berth after that. Actually, nothing changes at all. But now Kevin is reading into each action and Andrew knows that, and Kevin knows Andrew knows that because his eyes do a thing where they look like he’s laughing at Kevin, but there’s something else in there too.

It drives Kevin mad.

But then Nicky mentions Eden’s Twilight and Andrew’s eyes flit quickly to Kevin and then back, and if Kevin wasn’t watching Andrew so closely he wouldn’t notice how his eyes shift into _something_ for a millisecond. Kevin doesn’t understand in that moment, but later when he picks apart every moment of that night it _clicks._

And when it does Kevin feels really stupid and also weirdly flattered, but mostly nervous for some reason. 

And then he thinks back to the quiet morning in Columbia and the quiet nights on the roof and he thinks that maybe he gets to have this one thing. Because Andrew may not make any sense but he has never lied to him so far and-- 

And maybe it doesn’t have to make any sense. 

Nothing does anymore anyway.

* * *

  
  


Andrew gets to be the first on the roof tonight in a way he rarely is.

A familiar creak of the door to the roof resonates through the quiet night.

“Care to share?”.

Andrew huffs, amused, and kicks the pack to where Kevin made himself comfortable, back to the wall.

“I think I figured it out,” Kevin says, blowing out smoke. He wonders how he’s never noticed anything earlier, when Andrew turns to him, eyes curious and amused.

“You think?”.

“Can’t be sure though. You’re not making much sense on a good day” Kevin teases.

The look in Andrew’s eyes is almost delight. 

“You’re smart” Andrew plays along “I’m sure you got it right in that pretty head of yours”.

Kevin smiles softly. “I think I did”.

Andrew leans closer. “So what was it?”.

“Columbia”.

Andrew’s eyes flash again, that same look as when Nicky mentioned it. “Fun night”.

Kevin shakes his head. “The morning”.

Andrew tilts his head and then nods in understanding. “It was good” he speaks quietly, as if not to disturb the soft peace of the memory.

“So” Kevin throws away the butt over the edge of the roof “did I get it right?”. He moves a bit closer. “Do you care?”.

Andrew looks at him, with something in his eyes Kevin now dares to call fond. “I care”.

Kevin’s pulse speeds up. “Why?”.

Andrew pulls him closer. Kevin can count his eyelashes from this close. 

“You know why”.

Kevin’s smile falters, suddenly shaky. “Do I?”.

Andrew lifts his hand, gives him plenty of time to move away. When he doesn’t, Andrew glides his knuckles softly over the side of Kevin’s face and smiles when Kevin’s eyes widen.

“Pretty sure you do”.

Kissing Andrew doesn’t feel like anything Kevin ever experienced. Maybe because he’s never been touched like something to be careful with. Maybe because he never dared to think that he was right, truly, about how Andrew feels. Maybe because he convinced himself he doesn’t need kindness.

He was wrong, in any case, and he kisses back, clutching Andrew’s shirt like a lifeline. Like he will disappear if Kevin eases his hold even a fraction.

Andrew exhales a laugh and Kevin can feel it against his lips and it makes his heart swell in size, filling his ribcage to the brim. He wants to catch this sound in a bottle, wants to live in it forever. 

“Think you know now?”.

There’s indescribable warmth in Andrew’s voice now, as if he’s been holding himself back all this time and Kevin is so sorry, so sorry it took him so long to figure it out.

“Not sure” he replies, hushed and hoarse, kissed stupid. “Might need you to repeat yourself. You’re not making much sense”.

When Andrew laughs again Kevin kisses it out of him.

* * *

It takes Kevin a few days to fully digest whatever he and Andrew have now, mostly because he’s walking around in a happy haze of disbelief.

It hits him fully three days later on the rooftop, and he hides a smile in Andrew’s shoulder.

Andrew can probably tell because he can read Kevin like a book. Kevin is starting to realize he can read Andrew right back.

“Your end of the deal,” Andrew says suddenly, passing a cigarette to Kevin “is no longer relevant”.

Kevin stares, puzzled. “Why?”.

“Found it” Andrew shrugs and takes his cigarette back.

Kevin sits up straight. “You did? What is it?”.

Andrew stares.

“Stop it”.

Andrew grins, lopsided. “Didn’t even say anything”.

Kevin rolls his eyes. “Then tell me or get lost”.

Andrew keeps smiling, but it’s soft around the edges. Kevin’s breath gets caught in his throat.

“You can’t just say shit like that” he rasps.

“Didn’t even say anything”.

Kevin kisses him because if he doesn’t he might do something stupid. Like tell Andrew he loves him.

With the way Andrew chuckles against his lips, he’s pretty sure he doesn’t have to say anything.

  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> i just want to say this is the longest oneshot i've ever written and it will never happen again. if you liked it pls leave comments and kudos and knock on the heaven's door on my [ tumblr](https://mindlesslittlefreak.tumblr.com) or [ twitter](https://twitter.com/raccoon_dad) if you want to talk how whipped andrew is


End file.
